White House hits back in IRS-Lois Lerner flap

The Obama administration on Wednesday struck back against Republican charges of an IRS cover-up by revealing that it found no direct emails between former IRS official Lois Lerner and White House officials in a search conducted for lawmakers.

“We conducted a search for responsive documents and were unable to identify any communications between Lois Lerner and persons within the [Executive Office of the President] during the requested period,” reads a Wednesday letter obtained by POLITICO from White House counsel W. Neil Eggleston and addressed to Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.).

“We found zero emails, sorry to disappoint, between Lois Lerner and anyone within the EOP during this period,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a briefing to reporters, in response to a question. The EOP is the Executive Office of the President.

The White House defense comes days after the IRS scandal re-emerged when the IRS acknowledged it lost the emails of as many as six employees involved in the matter, including those of Lerner and Nikole Flax, the chief of staff for the IRS’s then-acting commissioner.

The email news has reignited Republicans’ ire in their probes into wrongdoing related to the scrutiny the IRS gave tea party applicants seeking tax breaks. The IRS commissioner will be on the hot seat at a hearing called by Camp set for Friday.

Camp spokeswoman Sarah Swinehart said they asked for documents nearly a year ago and “they have obstructed and delayed at every step. They now need to lean on all agencies to do an immediate search for Lerner documents and produce them to Congress — especially DOJ and Treasury. Bottom line — we do not have all the documents we requested.”

The White House did find three emails where Lerner and White House officials were copied on two third-party tax-assistance inquiries and one spam email.

Democrats have said all along that the ruckus was due to mismanagement and not nefarious intent, a conclusion broadly backed by the original inspector general report that first revealed the agency was using shortcuts to set aside applicants with words like “tea party.”

The letter to Camp and Wyden says the White House found one spam communication sent to both in October 2009 and two February 2009 emails where “a person sought tax assistance.” One of those emails included “a number of officials in Congress and at federal agencies as recipients.”

The two tax inquiries were enclosed in the letter, though not the copy POLITICO received because they include private taxpayer information.

The letter also answers a question Camp posed: When did the White House find out that Lerner’s emails were gone?

They said April.

“In April of this year, Treasury’s Office of General Counsel informed the White House Counsel’s Office that it appeared Ms. Lerner’s custodial email account contained very few emails prior to April 2011 and that the IRS was investigating the issue and, if necessary, would explore alternative means to locate additional emails.”